Creatively Capturing Perceptions: Town Centre Gardens

In August 2006 Stevenage Borough Council commissioned GHP to undertake a community consultation prior to the redevelopment of the Town Centre Gardens.

The gardens, over forty years old, were in need of significant creative and financial investment. There are a number of recognised issues with the park, including access, sense of place, drug use and perception of crime.

For the first stage of this project, GHP commissioned artists, Beverley Carpenter and Patricia MacKinnon-Day to lead a piece of creative consultation, following the Perception AREA: Snapshot model. During a short timeframe, the artists worked in residence in the park, capturing the perceptions at that specific time, i.e. a snapshot, of people who live nearby, pass through the park, or work / shop in the adjacent town centre, to understand their knowledge of the Park’s relevance to the new town heritage.

Stevenage Borough Council appointed GHP to carry out the masterplan for the park and GHP worked with HTA Architects to engage the community throughout the masterplanning process. Beverley continued to work with the lead landscape architect, Oliver Rock of HTA and key consultation groups, who expressed their thoughts about how they would like to use the park, and this information was regularly fed back into the development of the designs for the masterplan.

Stevenage was successful in securing Stage 1 of their HLF bid to the ‘Parks for People’ fund for nearly £2 million to implement the masterplan. GHP was instrumental to the bid in engaging the local community, developing the masterplan, and writing a Community Engagement Strategy.